


where angels fear to tread

by teacuphuman



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Sin City - All Media Types, The Dark Knight Rises
Genre: Bane is an inforcer, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Father John Blake, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kidnapping, M/M, Nightwing - Freeform, Saviour Complex, Secret Identity, Sin City AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 22:27:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15567699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacuphuman/pseuds/teacuphuman
Summary: "The first time I see him I’m ten years old..."Taken by the infamous child killer, The Bat, Robin John Blake is saved by an avenging angel at the last possible moment. But nothing good comes without sacrifice and when his angel dies so he can flee, Robin vows to dedicate his life to taking down that which goes bump in the Gotham night."I run. I run as hard and as fast as my weak and wounded body can carry me, to the only place I can think of to give me sanctuary.The Church."Ten years later Robin is Father John by day and Nightwing by night, out to take down The Inamorata, Gotham's biggest crime syndicate. Run by The Mistresses, The Inamorata employs the worst of the worst to keep a choke hold on the people of Gotham. But when The Mistresses favourite pet walks into his church, seeking confession, Father John finds himself staring into the face of the man who saved him, all those years ago.





	1. John

**Author's Note:**

  * For [youcantsaymylastname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcantsaymylastname/gifts).



> For the ultra-amazing, super-fantastic @youcantsaymylastname, who has all the best ideas and openly shares them with us, who requested a Sin City AU for the 2018 TDKR Giftworks Exchange, so many months ago. I hate you keep you waiting, darling, so here is what I have to far, and I promise to keep working on it!
> 
> Chapter count may change and tags will be updated as we go.

**One - John**

 

The first time I see him I’m ten years old. I’ve been in the boathouse three days, bound and gagged, the cut over my eye weeping sluggishly and casting the gritty wooden structure in a red film. The thin ropes are almost slack around my skinny wrists, but my attempts to shred them halt when I hear footsteps on the dock outside, fear seizing my muscles despite my quiet protests. 

 

Every time the man in the mask comes I want to scream. To kick and fight; to stop him. But I can’t. He terrifies me in a way my ten year old self doesn’t understand yet, and all I can do is squeeze my eyes tight and try not to cry. He likes it when I cry. But the footsteps I hear that day aren’t his. They’re cautious but hurried, the boards creaking under a weight greater than the man in the mask. 

 

“Robin?” My father’s voice whispers desperately, his brown eye half wild where it peeks through the hole in the door.

 

Once again, I can’t make a sound. Can’t wiggle with happiness or even sigh with relief, because if my father is here, the man in the mask isn’t far behind. This is why I was taken, after all.

 

I’m number six. Before me there were five others. Five young boys taken in broad daylight with no trace of them left behind. Like they’d simply vanished into the mist that creeps up from the bay in the early mornings in Gotham City. But those boys, those broken promises of men who will never be, didn’t simply vanish. They were taken. Stolen from their lives and subjected to horrors I didn’t have words for when I snuck peeks at my father’s case files. Bruises and cuts, burn marks and blood smeared where it had no right to be, and now I’m number six and I know. The whys, and the wheres, and the hows. They’re seared into my mind, fresh and permanent like a burn from the stove.

 

My father is dead before he hits the floor, gutted and foul on the dirty, wet ground. His badge is streaked with blood, having tumbled from his outstretched hand as he fell. His eyes are still open; blank and staring into mine, frozen in the pain and horror of his last moments. The man in the mask stands over him, a smile cutting across his cruel lips.

 

“This is it, Robby-boy,” he tells me, his voice a rasp over cold stones, sending a swell of fear through me so dense I choke on it. He reaches for me and I lunge, the last strands of the ropes tearing through the delicate skin of my wrists. I know I’m dead if I don’t move, and if I’m dead, he wins.

 

But I’m weak and starved, and he laughs when he catches hold of me, pinning me under his arm and squeezing my fingers until the bones grind together. He presses them back, leaving my palm open and vulnerable, and I know this is it. This is the last thing he does before he kills me. 

 

The blade is sharp, but dirty, the blood of the other five flaking into the open wound he carves into my skin. His calling card. Two curved lines, meeting in the middle, then two short slices down, joining them. The Bat.

 

I scream in pain, in anger, in a desperate last attempt to free myself. He’s shocked. I can feel it go through him like a bolt of electricity because in three days, it’s the first sound I’ve made. His grip loosens, just for a second, but I squeeze from his hold, striking out at his knee with everything I have. He snarls and limps toward me, his dark eyes snapping with fury. The door to the boathouse burst open, and there he is, sunshine streaming in from outside around the bulk of his shoulders and lighting him up like every vision of a hero I’ve ever prayed for.

 

My saviour.

 

He’s visibly shocked by what he’s found, but determined, and so tall he has to duck to fit through the door. He’s lean, but strong, and he grabs hold of the masked man’s coat and spins him into the wall. It should be an easy fight, or a fair one at least, but The Bat doesn’t know the meaning of the word and his blade doesn’t hesitate or discriminate. 

 

The man grunts and blood sprays across the wall. With one hand held to his neck, the man swings at The Bat, cracking across his jaw and sending him to his knees. 

 

“Run!” the man bellows at me, gasping as The Bat gets behind him and sinks the blade into his spine. He’s as good as dead, I know, stumbling over the remains of my father in my haste to break free of this nightmare.

 

The Bat grasps for me in the small room, but the man slumps over him, weighing him down and trapping him under the bulk of his larger body. I see acceptance in the man’s viridian eyes when he looks back, a subtle nod to tell me it’s okay, that his sacrifice is worth my life, but it’s up to me now to stay safe.

 

I run. I run as hard and as fast as my weak and wounded body can carry me, to the only place I can think of to give me sanctuary. 

 

The Church.

 

It’s there that I see him again, ten years later. My avenging angel. 


	2. Bane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bane is written in the style of Harvey from Sin City to keep things flowing, so you'll have to give him a little room to work. Writing in this style doesn't leave a lot of room for flowery words of despcriptions, so if Bane's narrative seems wider than usual, that's why.

**Two - Bane**

 

For ten long years I’ve been paying my dues for playing the hero. One moment of altruism in thirty-one years and now here I am, rebuilt and monstrous, standing in the aisle of The Church while a young slip of a priest fails to hide the shock behind his professional demeanor. It’s a shame, too. The kids pretty. All dark eyes and a soft, wide mouth. In another life, I might have set my sights on just how well that collar fit.

 

But not now. Not when my face is a series of silvery scars and the bulk of my clothes hide the braces that hold me together. Now I serve a different mistress, and she’s as cruel as she is beautiful. They both are.

 

“Will you take my confession or not?” I bark, but the priest doesn’t startle like he should. Instead, his face closes off, the mask of impartiality slipping into place as he bows his head and leads the way to the confessional. 

 

It’s a tight squeeze, but if I don’t breathe too deep, I won’t break anything. The partition slides open and the kid’s voice is deeper than I’m expecting, softer, too.

 

“Go ahead.”

 

“I cannot ask you to bless me, Father,” I start, and damned if it doesn’t feel strange to call him that when he looks so wet behind the ears. “All I ask is that you listen. I know I’m damned. I have accepted that. But I find comfort in giving a voice to my evil deeds.”

 

“Evil?” the priest scoffs, and I can tell he’s smirking. Can almost hear the eye roll from this side of the box.

 

“You must be new to Gotham if you don’t believe there’s evil on these streets,” I say, gripping my knees. Sitting hunched like this makes my back ache, but it’s part of my penance and I’ll bear it until I’ve said what I came to say.

 

“I’ve lived in Gotham every day of my life,” the priest tells me, sounding older than before. “I have seen firsthand what people are capable of when they think they won’t get caught.”

 

“And yet you mock me?”

 

“No,” he swears, vehemently. “I would never do that. Your life is yours, and only you know the condition of your soul, but I do wonder about the path that led you here.”

 

“I came up Brute Street,” I say, flat and sharp because others have tried to pry my story out of me and it doesn’t work. I have told that story exactly once and I never intend to repeat it.

 

“Do you want to get out of here?” the priest asks, the smile back in his voice.

 

“I...what?” I stammer, which is something new and wholly unwelcome. 

 

“You say you’re not looking for absolution, so why take up time in the confessional? Besides, you look uncomfortable.”

 

I glare at the partition and sure enough, he’s bent low so he can see me through the screen. His eyes are full of the mirth that matches the curve of his smile, and just like that, I’m hooked. Couldn’t say no if I tried.

 

He leads me into the rectory, leaving me in a small sitting room while he makes tea. The walls are covered in books and my fingers itch to pull them out, but I don’t know what to expect from this meeting, so I stand with my back to the wall. Is the priest simply unconventional in his approach to save my soul, or is there something bigger at play here? Either way, there’s something about the man that appeals to a part of myself I though long dead. 

 

When he comes back, a tray loaded with tea and biscuits, and small slices of marzipan, smiling at me over his offering like he’s happy I’m still here, something inside me cracks open. The seed of lust, small and dry as a husk, springing to life with hope, and strength, and  _ greed _ .

 

It’s been over a decade since I felt anything close to this, and even then it wasn’t the aching fascination that’s welling beneath my skin.

 

“What’s your name?” he asks, setting the tray down. He looks up when I don’t answer. “Too soon?”

 

I narrow my eyes at the quirk of his mouth, not because I don’t trust him, but because no one has ever asked me that before.

 

“Bane,” I offer, my throat dry. Clearing it doesn’t help, but the view of him sitting at my knee, folded in two to fill my cup, has my mouth flooding with saliva. 

 

“I’m John,” he places the cup in front of the empty chair next to him and it’s then I first notice the gloves. They’re black and smooth, thin leather stitched so finely they look like just like another layer of skin. He hides his hands when he notices me starting. “I have poor circulation,” he explains. “My hands get cold.”

 

I nod, ignoring the lie in his voice. “John,” I say, trying it out. “Father John.”

 

He smiles. “Just John, if you like.”

 

“Because this isn’t a confession,” I say.

 

“Exactly. Just two men talking. Comrades.”

 

It’s my turn to scoff. “I doubt our endeavors are alike enough for us to be considered comrades.”

 

“You might be surprised about that,” he mutters into his teacup. “Perhaps friends, then?”

 

“I don’t have friends.”

 

“Neither do I,” John says, his eyes hard as flint, as though he’s daring Bane to question him.

 

“Do we need a name for this?” I ask, feeling unsettled in a way I can’t explain.

 

John smiles again, the edge gone from his voice, his face open once more. “No, I suppose not.”

 

I grunt and take a sip, the warm bitterness of the tea soothing my scarred throat along with my pride. 

 

“So, Bane,” John says, settling into his chair. “Tell me about these deeds.”


	3. John

**Three - John**

 

It’s amazing, how the man across from me has no idea who I am. No inkling that the only reason I’m is even alive to hear him speak is because of one selfless act, one instant of heroism that doomed him to certain death. 

 

Or so I’d thought. 

 

I can see the scar on his neck from The Bat’s knife, the one that nearly ended the rescue before it even began. I can still see him standing there, the shock and pain on his younger, slimmer face, his hand pressed to the wound. The blood seeping from between his fingers as he fought on. 

 

I want to jump to my feet and scream the truth. Tell him I know who he is, what he did. That I still see the quiet acceptance in his eyes every time I close my own. That I prayed for him to survive, to come back to me so I could try to pay him back somehow. 

 

And now he has. 

 

He’s changed, but I suppose we both have. All quiet intensity and dangerous glances, but he’s still the same man. The one who threw himself between a child and a madman without a second thought. The one who did what ninety percent of other Gothamites wouldn’t have. The one who inspired me to become more than I appear.

 

He’s trying to shield me from the reality of his life, I can tell. He doesn’t use names or places, but there are enough details for me to pick out the events. Crimes confined to two inches of print, hidden in the depths of The Gotham Times between gardening tips and letters to the editor. The snippets of information I’ve been watching, compiling, in the hope that they’re all pieces of a bigger puzzle. And now here he is. The man who saved me. The man I didn’t know I was looking for. The man who now acts as the left hand of The Mistresses. The inforcer of The Inamorata.

 

Bane is Gotham’s Reckoning and neither one of us is as honest as we seem.


	4. Bane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Memories of child abduction, abuse, and death.

**Four - Bane**

 

He doesn’t flinch. No matter what I say, how harsh I make my words, how dark my intonation, John never moves. He sits and he listens like he’s actually hearing me. Accepting my confessions as they come, because we can dance around it all we want, but that’s what this is, in the end. 

 

For a brief moment I consider telling him everything. All the sins I’ve buried deep, the ones done in darkness so bleak I could feel the absence of God in the shadows I hold so dear. But the collar reminds me there’s a limit to John’s patience, there has to be. He still thinks he can save me, and I’ll admit, there’s a part of me that would like to see him try. There’s one person I’d like to see on the other side, if I ever get there. 

 

Robin. 

 

The scrawny kid that didn’t get away, even with my sacrifice slowing that bastard bat down. He’s up there looking down on me, I know. I can feel him sometimes, tilting my head up when it feels like all I can do is look down. Giving me the strength to keep moving, keep fighting, keep fleeing from the hell that will welcome me on the day I finally die. If anyone has a chance of reuniting us, it's the priest in front of me.

 

I looked for him when I woke up. Long after Barsad found me on the shore and dragged me to The Scarecrow’s lab. After they stitched me back together and flooded my veins with poison, just to see what would happen. After they fitted the mask to my face and told me I was theirs, that I owed them. 

 

Before I killed for them, though. Before my hands were as bloody as The Bat’s, when I was still worthy of knowing the boy’s fate. I looked for him. But there was no trace. Just a story in the paper about a detective who got too close to the truth and a sixth small body never found. 

 

They withheld the names of the victims, the children The Bat stole and destroyed, but Barsad brought me the file. Had stood by, silent and solid as I raged in the confines of my sickbed, sobbed and screamed at the evil I couldn’t prevent from touching  _ him _ . Any of them. Five bodies found, washed up empty with the sign of The Bat carved into their palms. 

 

Robin had it, too. I saw it as it was happening, too slow and too appalled to stop it. Whatever The Bat did with him when he caught up, it must have been worse. Because The Bat loved leaving behind scraps and if anyone could have found them, it’s Barsad. 

 

Sometimes I think it’s best this way. I know better than most what it’s like to go through life a spectacle. Marked by evil and circumstance. The looks, the whispers, the pity. I want more for the boy, and if he’s dead, he at least got mercy in the end. 

 

But I saw the face of The Bat before I went in the water, and thought he hasn’t been seen since, I know it’s only a matter of time. He’s biding his time, just like me, until he thinks it’s safe to take another one. And when he does, I’ll be waiting. However long it takes, whatever path I have to follow, I’ll be there. I have a debt to pay for the one I couldn’t save. 

 

I look at the priest and his open smile, dimples prominent as he hides his smile behind his cup, and I realize I want to do right by him, too. I want him to look at me like I might be worth something someday. Like he might not regret wasting his time. 

 

The priest. The boy. Both of them weigh on my conscience now, equal burdens I find myself happy to bear. Robin and John. Both of them mine.


	5. John

**Five - John**

 

Faith is a funny thing. Everyday, I see people in various stages of losing and building their faith. It’s neither tangible or visceral, and yet people cling to it, even as it fades. It fascinates me. All that I believed in as a child bled into the bay along with my father’s life when I was ten, and even the collar around my neck can’t compete with the lack of belief in my heart. It’s penance, mostly. Repaying the debt I owe to The Church for keeping me safe all these years when no one else could. 

 

Until now. 

 

I watch Bane from the steps of The Church until he disappears into the night, the hulking frame of his body vanishes in the heavy fog that’s taking over the low street. Off to do God knows what for The Mistresses. 

 

I can’t stop him, and using him doesn’t feel right, but maybe I can change his focus. We have a common enemy, after all. A man who works in shadows almost as dark as the ones Bane commands. On my own, I have no problem dying to take him down, but with Bane by my side there’s a chance we could walk away. Have a real life in the aftermath. 

 

I’ve lived with the sole purpose of destroying The Bat for ten years. Half my life devoted to tracking my worst nightmare and putting him in the ground. I haven’t much considered a life beyond that, but Bane’s appearance has me wondering. What if.

 

“You shouldn’t be out here,” Father Lucius tells me, not quite laying his hand on my arm. He was the one at the door when I showed up all those years ago, broken and bleeding, needing to hide. He’s the one who gave me my purpose, who trained me to believe in an eye for an eye. To burn with the desire to stomp out evil before it can strike. He gave me back the night after years of nightmares that ripped me from the gentle clutches of sleep.

 

“It’s time,” I tell him, staring into the dark like I can make Bane reappear if I focus hard enough.

 

Father Lucius doesn’t startle or scoff. He’s reserved and rarely shocked. Usually half a dozen steps ahead of me. Twelve, when I need him to be, and I know he’s been ready for this since my first night in the suit.

 

“Why now?” he asks as he leads me through the hidden door in the Vestry. The stairs are a narrow and unforgiving path downwards, but Father Lucius is as spry as the day he baptized me, despite the grey in his hair and the sag in his cheeks.

 

“That man,” I say, swallowing around the lump in my throat. “He’s the one who saved me.”

 

Lucius slows on the stairs, but doesn’t stop. Doesn’t ask me if I’m sure because he knows I could never be wrong about this.

 

“The Inamorata aren’t common thugs; they’ll need to be handled with care.”

 

“I’m going to tell him who I am,” I confess, and at this, he does pause.

 

“The Chruch—”

 

“I won’t put The Church in jeopardy. I’ll find him tonight and tell him. He doesn’t have to know that the man in the suit and the priest are the same.”

 

“And what if he does?”

 

I strip off my uniform, folding it carefully and setting the collar on top. The suit is light and cool against my skin, molding perfectly to the length of me. This time, like all the others, it feels like I’m uncovering my true self instead of slipping into three and a half yards of insulated, fire resistant Kevlar.

 

“You didn’t hear him today. He’s tired. Looking for a new purpose to get him away from The Mistresses. He’ll join me.”

 

“You may not know him as well as you think. Even Gotham’s Reckoning can’t just walk away from The Inamorata,” Lucius warns.

 

I zip the boots over my calves and settle the mask over my eyes. The blue across my chest shines dimly in the light of my Eskrima. Father Lucius follows the glow of them until I slip them along my thigh, testing their hold.

 

“John.”

 

“I can’t explain it, Lucius. I can’t—It’s more than words. More than feeling. It’s…”

 

“Faith,” he says, his voice quiet, but full of authority. There’s a smile ghosting over his lips, like he thinks he’s won a long-fought argument.

 

“I don’t believe in faith.”

 

“But?” he prompts.

 

“I believe in Bane.”


	6. John

**Six - John**

 

I take to the rooftops, slipping between the cracks of light between the dark deeds of Gotham’s underground. On any other night, I’d stop here and there to make sure the ones prowling the streets, hungering for blood and pain, meet the sun with empty bellies. But there isn’t time for that now. 

 

I cut through downtown from Hayesville, taking the West Harlow Bridge into Reatton and bypassing The Narrows altogether. The Inamorata have been waging a war to claim that land for longer than I’ve been alive, and that’s no doubt where Bane will be, but I have a different target in line for tonight.

 

The Mistresses like to pass themselves off as members of the elite in a mansion along the edge of South City Park. Rubbing elbows with Gotham’s wealthy at galas thrown just as much for publicity as for laundering money. The Inamorata gets the meat of the donations and the charities get the bones. 

 

There’s a party tonight and I’m not on the guest list, but I never was one for going in the front door, anyway. I squeeze myself through an air vent on the roof, causing just enough of a racket to make them suspicious. It’s no fun if they don’t know I’m coming. Anticipation breeds frustration, after all, and no one’s ever accused me of being easy.

 

They’re waiting for me when I drop out of the ceiling, guns trained and eyes hard as flint. I grin, counting silently how many bones I’ll have to break to get to the Mistresses.

 

“Just a minute, boys,” I say, slapping drywall dust and rat shit from my suit. “Or it’ll hardly be a fair fight.”

 

“Who says we fight fair?” the goon in front spits. He’s small, but graceful, probably quick, too. He’ll need to go first.

 

“I meant me, but suit yourself,” my Eskrima are in my hands before I finish speaking and I hit him with a double pulse, dropping him like a stone on the ocean floor. The others move in a wave, barely moved by the fall of the first. I wonder if Bane trained them. I hope he did. 

 

I weave through them, my suit absorbing the shock of the bullets that are too quick to evade. My second skin keeping their filthy hands off me. Six more are on the floor within a minute, and the swarm around me backs off, finally realizing I’m more than can be handled with sheer force.

 

I hold my defensive stance while they form a circle around me. “Isn’t anyone going to ask me why I’m here?”

 

“Why are you here?” someone asks flatly, sounding bored. Where do they find these guys?

 

“I want to speak with The Mistresses,” I tell them, waving my Eskrima at anyone who grows bold.

 

“There are proper channels for that,” a new voice says. It’s high and smug, and worst of all, familiar. A cold shiver runs down my spine.

 

I posture and smirk. “I’m not big on proper.”

 

He steps forward, his dark eyes sunken in the pale skin of his face. His smile is still and too wide, like it froze on his face the moment he gave his soul over to The Inamorata. Victor Zsasz. The Hitman.

 

“Naughty little vigilante,” he tsks, folding his gloved hands over his sternum. “There’s a price on your head.”

 

“Really? How much?” I relax my stance. I’m nowhere near out of danger, but there’s a game to be played here, and I intend to win. “I’ve got some gambling debts to take care of.”

 

Victor tilts his head and purses his bloodless lips. “No, you don’t. No debts, no credit cards. No home. No name.”

 

“You been looking in on me, Victor? I’m flattered.”

 

“You’re a ghost.”

 

“Stop hiding behind your goons and come see just how corporeal I am, sweetheart,” I hiss, hoping to unnerve him. It doesn’t work. His smile gets wider the longer he leers at me. Not like a lover might, or even a pervert. Victor looks at me like he’s imagining what my skin will look like mounted on his wall.

 

His twitches and I notice the hardware in his ear. “Another time, perhaps,” he sighs, turning away. “Your request has been granted.”

 

The goons let me pass, giving me a narrow berth to follow Victor out of the room and down the hall. I can hear the party on the first floor, the sound of fake laughter and desperate vanity. Victor takes me up, up, up, into the crisp dampness of the attic. There’s a woman spread across a chaise, the moonlight shining through the skylight above her and separating the outline of her leather catsuit from the darkness around us.

 

“Have you brought me a birdy to play with, Victor?” she purrs, her eyes sparkling.

 

“I’m no one’s plaything,” I spit, eyeing the guards behind her.

 

“I’ll be the judge of that.” She grins, getting to her feet as smoothly as sand poured from a cup.

 

“Mistress Selina,” Victor simpers. “This one took out six of our men before I arrived.”

 

“Did you really?” Her tone is dangerous and seductive.

 

I shrug. “It was actually seven, but who’s counting?”

 

“Oh, I’m always keeping track. Nightwing, isn’t it?”

 

“You know it is,” I say, cocking my hip to match hers. “Victor says you’ve been looking into me. Been making you nervous, have I, Mistress?”

 

“Hardly,” she laughs. “But one should always be cautious when there’s a wolf at the door.”

 

“I’m a wolf now, not a bird? You really know how to mix metaphors, lady.”

 

“You’re not the wolf,” she hisses. “The Bat is.”

 

Words die on my lips, the scar under my glove pricking. It’s a struggle not to close my fingers over it in protection, but I resist.

 

“You think I’m working for The Bat?” I say, my voice miraculously flat.

 

“No, sweetie.” She rolls her eyes, her palm slapping my cheek sharply. “I think you’re going to try to kill The Bat.”

 

“And you’re opposed to that?” Rage is making my hands shake and I need to get a hold of it before things get stupid.

 

“Unfortunately for you, yes. You’re a do-gooder, birdy, and there’s just no room for you in Gotham right now.”

 

“So you’re okay with The Bat taking kids. Stealing them from their beds and shredding their innocence. You’re old enough to remember the last time he was active on these streets.” I can’t help that I’m yelling and I want to smack the amusement off her pretty face.

 

“The GPD was stretched thin between the missing kids and scared neighbours accusing each other of the worst,” she confirms, walking around me. “Crime was rampant, gangs going to war in broad daylight, people bleeding out on the evening news.”

 

“And you want that again?”

 

“Did you know that sixty-five percent of The Inamorata’s territory was gained between the disappearance of the third and fifth kids back then?”

 

Her breath ghosts warmly over the collar of my suit, but I’m frozen in place. The Mistresses may not be working with The Bat, but they sure as hell aren’t going to raise a hand to stop him. Not when they stand to profit from the chaos his reemergence creates. 

 

I feel sick. So bowled over at the depth of darkness this city fosters in people that it takes a moment for the pain to set in. 

 

My fingers go to the binding at my neck, but it’s too late, the braided leather of the Mistress’ whip is cutting off my air supply and my vision is fading. The last thing I see before I let the darkness take me is Victor’s grin and the flash of silver as he raises his gun.


	7. Bane

**Seven - Bane**

 

I’m still as a mountain as Crane works over my mask. The contraption keeps cutting out, robbing me of the Venom that saved my life.

 

“Fan for dehumidification, canister filter clear,” Crane mutters. 

 

Barsad smirks at me over Crane’s head. Crane created the mask at the behest of the Mistresses, for the express purpose of controlling me once they pulled me from the brink of death. For the past year, Barsad has been sabotaging that control.

 

I no longer need the Venom to survive. I can go weeks, months without it, if I wish. The mask has become a symbol of Gotham’s Reckoning, but it no longer dictates who I am. 

 

I am Bane. 

 

A man with free will and a private agenda. A man who no longer wishes to bend to the will of another. A man who has a promise to fulfill. One made in silence to a ten-year-old boy, moments before I plunged into the brakken waters of the Gotham River.

 

But first I need to see the Priest again. Father John. Just John, if I like. And I do.

 

He haunts my nights as well as my days now. He’s settled under my skin, an itch I can’t satisfy no matter what manner of balm I use to soothe it. I need to see him. To be close enough to smell his skin and find his hair on my clothes. My interest in John has become an obsession almost overnight, and there’s nothing that will stop me from finding him.

 

Almost. 

 

The Mistresses must be appeased before I can follow my own longings. I have a role to play, and if I don’t want to end up on the wet end of a Gotham sewer, I best play my part. 

 

Crane reattaches the mask and my heart rate spikes at the first breath of Venom I’ve had in two months. Barsad shifts on his feet, but I wave him off, careful to take short, slow breaths. It will be at least an hour before he can shut down the injection system and until then I’ll have to suffer the pain of my body reacquainting itself with the poison.

 

“Better now, my pet?” The Mistress asks from the doorway. Her hair is piled high on her head, showing off the delicate line of her shoulders and the fine silhouette of her emerald dress. She looks like a precious gem. Sharp and cold to the touch.

 

“Better,” I agree.

 

Her hands are firm on my uncovered head, fingers tracing the line of the mask where it arches across my skull. 

 

“So beautiful,” she breathes, her eyes hungry and sparkling. “Such power.”

 

“I am what you have made me, Mistress.” 

 

“Yes, you are,” she coos, red lips curving into a dangerous smile. 

 

It’s always been like this with her. The desire she feels for me tempered by my use to The Inamorata. She could have me, if she wanted, but it would mean taking away the Venom and robbing me of the strength that’s made me a legend in the eyes of her enemies. As far as The Mistress knows, I would go to her in an instant if I could. But she understands that power is worth more than desire and won’t force the issue. Doesn’t mean the desire has faded, though.

 

“Why are you down here, Talia?” Crane interrupts.

 

Her guard flinches at the easy use of The Mistress’ name, but it’s well understood that Crane works  _ with _ The Inamorata, not  _ for _ them, and as such is afforded certain comforts. I know for a fact that Crane could end them all with half an ounce of the liquid in his right jacket pocket, and it’s generally agreed that when the time comes, Crane is to be dealt with from a distance. A long distance. 

 

Barsad’s fingers twitch like he’s reading my mind and I slip off the table, restrapping my wrist and shouldering my jacket.

 

“We had an uninvited guest during the party tonight,” she tells me, eyes tracking my reaction. I stare back at her, waiting for her to find whatever obedience will satisfy her. “Nightwing.”

 

“A minor nuisance so far,” I tell her.

 

“I agree, but my sister tells me he’s interested in The Bat and he managed to escape before Victor could deal with him. We can’t have him interfering until we have The Narrows in our grasp, understood?”

 

I bow my head. “Yes, Mistress.”

 

She touches me one last time, her hand lingering on the swell of my bicep before she’s gone in a swirl of skirts, her perfume dissipating in the overpowering stench of Crane’s chemicals.

 

“Does she know Victor’s been on Nightwing’s trail for the past three months?” Barsad asks once we’re back on the streets of Midtown.

 

“I appears not,” I signal one of my men and he drops to the ground from a nearby fire escape. “Find out where Victor lost Nightwing and track him. He’s quick, and lethal, so keep your distance. No need to draw attention.”

 

“Yes, sir,” the man says before vanishing into the night.

 

“You know what happens when the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing,” Barsad comments.

 

I hum in agreement and head for Coventry Lane. We have fires to light in The Narrows tonight, and I’m eager to get started. Confession starts in sixteen hours and there’s a battlefield to cross to get there.


	8. Bane

**Eight - Bane**

 

John isn’t taking confession when I arrive. Father Lucius takes one look at me and turns away, his hand touching the door to the Rectory as he moves towards the statue of Saint  Jerome Emiliani to light a candle.

 

The rectory is dim in the fading of the day, but light spills into the kitchen from the open back door. I find John sitting crossed legged on the railing, perfectly balanced on the thin strip of metal. There’s a cigarette burning between two of his gloved fingers, but he’s not smoking it, simply staring at the bright tip as it burns through the paper and tobacco.

 

I wait him out, watching the impossible grace that keeps him from tipping one way or the other, onto the stairway. His legs don’t shake and his back is straight, like there’s an invisible line holding him still, something thin, but severe, keeping him safe from the fall.

 

The illusion is shattered when his shoulders twitch and he tumbles from his perch, turning away from me when I reach out to steady him.

 

“I’m fine,” he snaps, but his voice disagrees. It’s rough and strained, like he spent hours shouting.

 

“You’re hurt.” My hand curls around his wrist and the warm vividness of his skin goes through me like a shock.

 

John turns to me and there’s a gash over the bridge of his nose, the wound as fresh and raw as the bruise around his left eye. His throat bears the marks of something tight and unforgiving digging into his flesh while he was dragged. 

 

“Who did this?” Fury spikes inside me so fast it’s like I’m wearing the mask again. Like I’m nothing more than a man made of violence and obsession.

 

John’s eyes light up at my anger, lust blooming dangerously in the pink of his cheeks. Then, as quick as it appeared, it’s gone and he’s laughing. Doubled over and shaking with tears running over his cheeks. He groans and wraps his arms around his ribs, but the laughs don’t stop.

 

“John,” I snap, holding him upright. The cigarette falls to the pavement and he laughs harder at the sparks it throws. I want to slap him.

 

“Are you mad at me, Bane?” he chokes out, squirming from my grasp. “Annoyed that I stuck my nose in something I shouldn’t have and got knocked around?”

 

“No, I—”

 

“Or are you just pissed someone else left their mark on me? Huh? Is that it? Am I  _ ruined _ now? Because believe me, this is the least of my wounds.” He’s in my face, eyes wild and spit flying, nails sharp as a feral cat. But there’s something vulnerable and desperate in him, pleading with me not to walk away. As if he doesn’t know I never could.

 

I pull him close, ignoring his struggling and using my superior strength to hold him until he stills, gasping against my chest. My shirt grows wet under his open mouth, but I can’t let go; not yet. I need to feel him calm. Give him time to gather himself and adjust so he doesn’t run from me when he realizes the scene he’s made. The secrets he’s revealed.

 

“Nothing could ruin you in my eyes,” I whisper into his hair. His fingers dig into my ribs and he relaxes into my embrace. “Not your sins, or your secrets. Not even that collar around your neck.”

 

He laughs wetly and looks up at me. “Most people see the collar as a pretty big obstacle.”

 

“You told me you were just John if I liked.”

 

His smile is small, but it’s there. “And you like?”

 

My thumb rubs over the dip in his cheek, drawing him closer until his forehead is pressed to mine. I trace his lower lip, commiting to memory how it feels against the pad of my finger. 

 

“I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saint Jerome Emiliani is the Patron Saint of Orphans.


	9. John

**Nine - John**

 

My breath is a series of shudders and all I can do is stare up at this impossible man. I pull away, wincing as the hand I run through my hair hits the welt Victor left with the butt of his gun. “You mean that, don’t you?”

 

“Of course,” Bane says, like it’s that easy. Like I should take his words at face value and not worry about his motives. 

 

“It doesn’t matter who did this,” I gesture to my face. “What matters is what happens now.”

 

“And what is that?” Bane asks, and God help me, the earnestness in his eyes is intoxicating. 

 

I shrug. “I keep going, just like always.”

 

Bane’s inscrutable grey eyes watch me like they can sear straight through my put-on bravado.

 

“There’s a war coming to Gotham, John. I don’t want us to be on opposite sides of it.”

 

“Then don’t be my enemy, Bane.” I say, longing for him to agree, even though I know he can’t.

 

“It’s not that easy—”

 

“It could be,” I insist. “Stay here. With me.”

 

Bane looks more conflicted than I’ve ever seen him, but only for a moment, then it’s back to the cold countenance he first walked in here with.

 

“They would come after me. Staying would put you in danger.”

 

I gesture to my face with a grin. “I’m already in danger.”

 

“Not like this,” he swears, and I can’t help but laugh.

 

“I think you’d be surprised.”

 

“You never stop surprising me, John,” Bane says softly, and just like that I have to taste him. 

 

It’s fast, and it’s clumsy, but it’s the best kiss of my life, and maybe the first of his, and it’s perfect in its brutal, honest, simplicity. When I pull away, he chases me, his arms like bands of steel around my back, and it hurts, and it’s too much, but I’m dragging him around the corner into the darkness so I can get on my knees.

 

“John—” Bane gasps, helping me open the front of his pants.

 

“Shh, shh,” I say, kissing whatever part of him I can reach. The curve of his stomach is criminal and I can’t help but run my thumbs over it again and again as I swallow him down. He’s smooth and thick, and sits on my tongue with a delicious heaviness.

 

It’s over almost as quickly as it starts and Bane quivers under my hands as he spurts across my tongue, salty sweet and I have to swallow three times before I can pull off. He crushes me against him, shaking as he hums into my neck. I’m uncomfortably hard in my slacks, but he doesn’t reach for me and I’m grateful. There’s too much baggage there to unpack in the alley behind the church while I’m wearing my collar.

 

“You should go,” I say, gentling the words with a kiss. “Unless you mean to stay.”

 

Bane looks at me for a long time, like he’s memorizing all the lines of my face, then he turns away. “I should go.”

 

“Maybe once all this is over,” I start, closing my mouth at the hard look in his eyes. 

 

“Stay safe, John.”

 

And he’s gone.


End file.
